The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-07-27
SERMONS OF THE FUTURE.
REV. Or. TALMAGE SAYS THEY
WILL BE SHORT.
Condensation Demanded by the Age.
The Coming Discourse VIII Abound in
Instances of yicarious Suffering Taken
from Everyday Life.

L. De WIN 1difndge subject this morn
ing was: Preaching, Teaching and Ex-
hortation, and his text: Romans xii,
z, 8: "Or ministry, let us wait on our
ministering; or he that teacheth, ON
teaching; or he. that exhorteth, on ex-
hortation."
Before the world is converted the STYLE
of religious discourse viii have TO be con-
verted. You might as well go into the
modern Sedan or Gettysburg with bows
and arrows instead of rifles and bomb
shells and parks Of artillery, as to expect
10 conquer this world for God by the old
styles of exhortatiOn and sermonology.
Jonathan Edwards preached the sermons
most adapted to the age in which he
lived, but if those sermons were preached
now they would divide an audience into
two classes, those sound asleep and those
wanting TO 20 home.
But there is a religious discourse of the
future-who will preach it / have no
idea, in what part of the earth it will be
born | have no idea. in which denomina-
tons Of Christians it viii be delivered /
cannot guess. That discourse or ex-
hortation may be born in the country
meeting house on the banks of the st.
lawrence, or the Oregon, or the Ohio,
% the TOmbigbee, or the Alabama. The
Lrrson who shall deliver it may this mo-
ment be in a cradle under the shadows
of the Sierra Nevadas, or in New Eng
land farm house, or amid the rice fields
Of the southern savannas. Or this mo-
ment there may be some young man in
some Of our theological seminaries, in the
junior or middle or senior class, shaping
that weapon Of power. Or there may
he coming some new baptism of the Holy
Ghost on the churches, so that some of
ms who now stand in the watch towers
Of Zion, waking to a realization of our
present inefficiency, may preach it our
selves. That coming discourse may not
be fifty years off. And let us pray
God that its arrival may be FASTENED,
while | announce 10 you what | think
will be the chief characteristics of that
discourse or exhortation when it does
arrive, and | want to make the remarks
of the morning appropriate and suggest
i've TO all classes of Christian workers.
First of all remark, that that future
religious discourse will be full of a living
Christ in cOntradistinction to didactic
technicalities. A discourse may be full
of Christ though hardly mentioning his
name, and a sermon may be empty of
Christ while every sentence is repetitious
of his titles. The world wants a living
Christ, not a Christ standing at the head
of formal system of theology, but
Christ who means pardon and sympathy,
and condolences, and brotherhood, and
life, and heaven. A poor mans Christ.
A rich mans Christ An overworked
mans Christ. An invalid's Christ. A
farmers Christ. A merchants Christ.
An artisans Christ. An every man s
Christ
A symmetrical and fine worded system
of theology is well enough for theological
classes, but it has no more business in a
pulpit than have the technical phrases of
an anatOmist or a psychologist or ply
stefan in the sick room of patient. The
world wants help, immediate and world
uplifting, and it will come through dis
course in which Christ shall walk right
down into the immortal soul and take
everlasting possession of it, filling it as
full of light as is this monday armament.
That sermon of exhortation of the flu
ture will not deal with men in the thread
bare illustrations of Jesus Christ. In
that coming address there will be in
stances of vicarious suffering taken right
out of everyday life, for there is not a
day somebody is not dying for others.
AS the physician saving his diphtheritic
patient by sacrificing his own life as the
ship captain going down with his vessel,
while he is getting his passengers into the
lifeboat; as the fireman consuming in the
burning building while he is taking a
child out of four story window; as in
summer the strong swimmer at East
Hampton, or Long Branch, or Cape
May, or Lake George, himself persisted
trying to rescue the drowning; as
the newspaper boy one summer. sup
porting his mother for some years, his
invalid mother, when offered by a gen
tleman fifty cents to get some especial
paper, and he got it, and rushed up in
his anxiety to deliver it, and was crushed
under the wheels of the train, and lay on
the grass with only strength enough to
say: "Oh, what will become of my poor
sick mother now?'
yicarious suffering. The world is full
of it. An engineer said to me on loco
motive in Dakota: 1--WE men seem to be
coming to better appreciation than we
used to. Did you see that account the
other day of an engineer who to save his
passengers stuck to his place, and when
he was found dead in the locomotive,
which was upside down, he was found
still smiling. his hand on the air brake?'
And as the engineer said it to me, he put
his hand ON the air brake to illustrate
his meaning, and l looked at him and
thought: you would be Just as much
of a hero in the same crisis. -
Oh, in that religious discourse of the
future there will be living illustrations
taken out from everyday life of vicarious
suffering illustrations that viii bring to
mind the ghastlier sacrifice of Him who
in the high places of the field, on the
cross, fought our battles, and wept our
griefs, and endured our struggle, and
died our death.
A German sculptor made an image of
Christ, and he asked his little child, 3
years old who it was. and she said:
THAT must be some very great man.
The sculptor was displeased with the crit
icism, so he got another block of marble
and chiseled away on it two or three
years, and then he brought in his little
child, or years of age, and he said to
her: "Who do you think that is?'' She
said: THAT must be the One who took
little children in his arms and blessed
them. Then the sculptor was satisfied.
Oh, my friends, what the world wants is
not cold Christ, not am intellectual
Christ, not a severely magisterial Christ,
but loving Christ, spreading out his
arms of sympathy to press the whols
world to his loving heart.
P,,t ,.a,,,o~l- aS~o;,, A.. A. ..,::
discourse of the future will be short.
Condensation is demanded by the age in
which we live. No more need of long
introductions and long applications, and
so many divisions to a discourse that it
may be said to be hydraheaded In other
days men got all their information from
the pulpit. There We're few books and
there were no newspapers, and there was
little travel from place to place, and peo-
pie would sit and listen two and half
hours to religious discourse, and 'ssev-
enteenthly" would find them fresh and
clipper. In those days there was enough
time for a man to take an hour to warm
himself up TO the subject and an hour to
cool off. But what was a necessity then
is a superhuity now. Congregations are
full of knowledge from books, from
newspapers, from rapid and contin-
uous intercommunication, and long
dispositions of what they know al
ready will not be abided. If religious
teacher cannot compress what he wishes
to say to the people in the space of
forty-five minutes, better adjourn it to
some other day.
The trouble is we preach audiences
into Christian frame, and then we
preach them out of it. We forget that
every auditor has so rolch capacity of
attention, and when that is exhausted he
is restless. That accident on the Long
Island railroad some years ago came from
the fact that the brakes were out of
order. and when thew wanted tn sion the